


When your heart is a stranger

by fandammit



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Winter Finale Angst, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 09:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9541628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandammit/pseuds/fandammit
Summary: If he were not so preoccupied with the glazed look that keeps creeping towards the irises of her eyes, if he were not so desperately trying to push down the feelings of panic and anger and betrayal, he might make some offhand joke about how good she looks in his clothes. The look on her face tells him that she certainly expects it.But then a shadow passes over her face and he watches her swallow back her own fear and panic. Suddenly he is just too tired and defeated and utterly destroyed to be anything but honest.So instead he smiles, the movement soft, its edges brittle.“Radiant.”--------------Chloe and Lucifer during "A Good Day to Die"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Missing moments during 2x13. Title taken from the song of the same name by Friends in Paris aka the last song in the episode.

She’s visibly shaking as she takes off her sweater. **  
**

“What on earth are you doing?” He asks, alarmed as he reaches out a hand to stop her.

“Lucifer, no one’s going to look twice at me if I’m wearing a blood soaked shirt.”

He looks down at her, standing in front of him clad only in black jeans and a plain black bra. It must say something about the progression of their relationship that she doesn’t even shy away from his gaze. It must say something more about how utterly rattled he is by the poison coursing through her veins that he doesn’t even think to stare.

Instead, he simply looks her in the eye and raises a brow. That it’s neither lecherous nor teasing comes as a surprise to them both.  

“Well, they’re certain to look at least three times at you if that’s what you’re planning on wearing.”

She tilts her head up at him, somehow manages to give the impression of rolling her eyes even as the corners of her mouth turn up.

“Though I’d say anyone would look at least twice at you even if you were wearing a paper bag,” he says, mostly to distract himself from the way the small upturn of lips tugs at the corners of his heart. He shrugs and tries for a teasing smile. “More so, I wager, depending on the size of the bag.”

She grins at him, though the movement is wan and lopsided.

“Have any of those lying around for me?”

He can tell she says it mostly for his benefit, which means he must be much worse at hiding his panic than he thought. He tries to school his face into something approaching nonchalant as he watches her shake out her jacket and sling it around her shoulders. The effect is immediately, absurdly attractive.

Except that his entire focus is stuck on how sallow her skin looks in the moonlight, how he can feel the heat emanating off of her despite the fact that she’s shivering. So instead of giving voice to the half dozen overtly affectionate phrases he can feel in back of his throat, he shrugs out of his jacket and moves behind her to help her into it.

“Lucifer - .”

“Detective,” he says, the word dangerously close to a plea, “as radiant as you are and as cool as your jacket looks, it seems to do very little in terms of warmth. No one is going to approach you if you continue to shiver like that.”

Truthfully, he assumes at least a half dozen men would approach her in any state of dress - or undress, as it were - shivering or no. Which she must know, too, the way that she’s looking at him. After a long moment, she sighs and removes the dark leather jacket from around her shoulders, thrusting it towards him and threading her arms into the sleeves of his jacket instead. Once she’s completely wrapped in it, she turns around and flings her arms out wide.

“How do I look?”

A shiver lances through her before he can reply.

He frowns and steps forward to button up the jacket, trying not to think about how close she is, how much he simply wants to wrap her in his arms.

For - what reason? No other he can discern other than the pleasure of being close to her.

The thought brings a furrow between his brows. Closeness for it’s own sake is a new desire for him. It’s disconcerting, having spent so long carefully cataloging every type of desire, to suddenly be confronted with a new one.

He finishes the last button and steps back, glancing at the full length of her. The sleeves fall past her hands, a testament to his long frame in comparison to her small one. She glares at the sleeves as though they’ve done something to personally offend her. The movement of her brows and crinkling of her nose filling him with an absurd sort of longing. He gives a slight shake of his head as he steps in closer to her once again, the elegant taper of his fingers folding up the ends of the sleeves, careful to touch her without really touching her.

He smooths down the sleeves and looks back up at her.  

“Well?” She asks, arching a brow at him.  

He forces himself to step away from her, his traitorous hands wanting to linger at the ends of his jacket sleeves.

If he were not so preoccupied with the glazed look that keeps creeping towards the irises of her eyes, if he were not so desperately trying to push down the feelings of panic and anger and betrayal, he might make some offhand joke about how good she looks in his clothes. The look on her face tells him that she certainly expects it.

But then a shadow passes over her face and he watches her swallow back her own fear and panic. Suddenly he is just too tired and defeated and utterly destroyed to be anything but honest.

So instead he smiles, the movement soft, its edges brittle.

“Radiant.”

* * *

He watches as douc - Dan - rests his hand on the detective’s, sees the way his eyes soften at the sight of her, the way she unconsciously leans into the touch. Even his unpracticed eye can detect the breadth of history between the two of them, all the moments, all the choices that led them here.

For one single moment, he can feel emotion clouding his thoughts, seeping into his veins, crawling up his throat.

It’s not hatred, though it feels startlingly close. Hatred he’s used to, a familiar bedfellow since his long fall from heaven.

No, this ugly, cloying thing is as unfamiliar as it is shattering.

He blinks rapidly, the answer coming to him in a bitter flash of epiphany -  

It’s envy.

The weight of it so thick and acrid he feels like he might choke on it, the tendrils of it squeezing the heart he so desperately wishes he didn’t have right now.

And not at the sight of Dan with his hands resting tenderly against the detective’s skin, though it makes him flush more than he’d like to admit. And not even for the knowledge of all that she and Dan have shared, of all the ways that Dan has known her in ways he never has (never will).

But for the simple, incontrovertible truth that Dan has and will always have what he so desperately wants. That Dan - and every other damn human being on this earth - has the exact thing that will forever elude him, whether in the Silver City or in Hell or anywhere here on earth:

The freedom to choose.

* * *

“Lucifer.”

He looks up and sees Dan staring down at him, for once not glowering or exasperated or even just barely tolerating him.

Instead, he looks almost happy to see him. Like - like he might do something truly awful and hug him at any moment.

He stands up quickly and steps back, straightening out the imagined wrinkles in his coat as he does.

Dan startles at the sudden movement, but his face just breaks out into a smile rather than the grimace Lucifer is so used to seeing from him.

“Man,” Dan says, and the word almost sounds like an endearment, “I don’t know how you did it -.”

“Went to hell, like I told you repeatedly, but do go on.”

Dan just laughs and shakes his head, then reaches out and claps him on the shoulder.

“Well, whatever hell you went through to get us that antidote worked. Tox screen just came back - she’s gonna be just fine.”

He lets out a breath he doesn’t realize he was holding, his heart constricting painfully in his chest. He feels like collapsing in the chair behind him, but it looks like Dan actually expects him to, so instead he raises an eyebrow and smirks.

“Well, I should certainly hope so. I would hate to think that my death and subsequent journey to hell would be for naught.”

Dan stares at him and Lucifer can practically see him going through responses in his head and discarding them one by one. None of them must pass muster, because Dan just shakes his head and again and squeezes Lucifer on the arm in a way that he supposes is supposed to be taken as a symbol of camaraderie.

“Weird shit from you man, always.” He looks up and seems to steel himself for his next words. “Thanks though. That was - .”

Lucifer shakes his head.

“Say no more, Detective Douche.” He raises his eyebrow as Dan seems to completely disregard his statement. “No really, don’t. It’s fine.”

Dan drops his hand - finally - and rocks back on his heels.

“So, I need to go and pick up Trixie from school. Mind sitting with Chloe until I get back? I talked to her a little bit ago, so she knows the whole story.” He gives Lucifer a lopsided grin that’s only a little sad around the eyes. “I’m guessing - .” He clears his throat and looks away for a moment. “I guess I’d kinda rather not be here when she gives you her thanks.”

Lucifer lets a lecherous grin crawl across his face, though only because he knows the other man expects it.

“Then might I suggest taking the long route to and from your offspring’s school?”

Dan rolls his eyes at that and turns without saying another word. Lucifer watches him go, somehow dreading and wanting to walk into the hospital room with equal amounts of fervor.

Finally, after staring at the door for what seems like an eternity, he breathes in deeply and walks in.

He sits down to keep vigil at her bedside, doing nothing but watching every sigh and shift in her movement with some strange mix of trepidation and longing. He wants to reach out and wrap his hand around hers, just to convince himself that she’s still here, that she’s still alive and breathing.

No.

He wants to reach out and wrap his hand around hers because he just wants to.

Because her skin looks soft. Because she’s beautiful. Because she’s better than he deserves. Because even though he knows it’s impossible, there’s a physical pain from beneath his breastbone at the force of his longing.

He reaches out and grips the hospital bed railing, twisting his hands around the cool metal rod.

He suddenly feels a great surge of damnable empathy with every poor sap that’s stumbled into Lux looking to forget. Only he’s not sure what he wants to forget. Or if he wants to forget.

He’s not sure of anything at all.

He wants to wrap her in his arms and forget all about divinity. He wants to leave the room and never look back.

The first he knows he won’t do. Can’t do, no matter what he wants.  

The second he knows will only be a matter of time.

He sighs and lets his head fall forward, his eyes tracing the still lines of her underneath her blanket. He gives himself one, two, three moments to give into his longing before he pushes it beneath his skin, tucks it away in some abandoned corner of his heart.

He looks up and tells himself that all he wants right now is to know that she’s safe.

Practically speaking, he knows that she is. He knows antidote was mixed correctly, that the toxicology screen came back clean.

But something in him needs to see it himself. Needs to see her smile at him, all soft and tender in a way that always draws a smile from him. He needs to see that wayward strand of hair that always falls into her face as she does, making him want to brush it back. He needs to know that his journey to Hell meant something, that it made a difference, that he made a difference, even if nothing else really does.  

* * *

It’s sometime later - hours, minutes, he’s not really sure - when she turns over and he sees her eyes flutter open.

He has to steel himself against every impulse to lean forward, every muscle in his body urging him to lean in and cradle her face in his hands.

He doesn’t, though - just twines his fingers together in the bed next to her, his body thrumming with the effort of not moving closer to her.

He tries to trace her features without being too obvious that he’s saying goodbye. He feels the weight of her hand on his and he has to keep himself from flinching against it, or else reaching up and pulling her towards him, her lips on his.

As he stands up and walks away from her, he finds he has to keep a list of things in his mind to make sure he keeps taking one step after another away from her.

He tells himself that she’ll be just fine - mortals have shown themselves to be surprisingly resilient, and the detective is the finest among them all. He tells himself that this is what’s best for her. He tells himself that none of it - of this - really matters anyway.  

He tells himself that he doesn’t - that he isn’t - that he can’t possibly feel the way that humans do when they sing about, write about, scream about love.

But lying is something he can’t do. Not even to himself. Not even now.

So instead he thinks of things that he knows to be true -

His father is to blame for all of this.  
His father deserves punishment.  
His father will be punished.


End file.
